Diverticulitis Now Seen In Young, Obese Adults

This used to be a disease of older people who are more than 50 years old. Now this this is appearing in younger adults, who are obese. A research study from the University of Maryland Medical Center showed that diverticulitis is now occurring in younger adults who are obese.

"Over the last ten years, I noted that a number of patients coming into the emergency room with CT findings of acute diverticulitis seemed younger than traditional teaching suggested, and often were obese," said Barry Daly, MD, an author of the study partner in research. "We were seeing patients as young as their early twenties, though textbooks typically describe this condition as a disease of the over-fifty age group," he said.

Elderly adults often develop acute diverticulitis, and this is considered to be one of the most frequent acute diseases of the colon. This disease is thoughtful occur because of inadequate amount of fiber in the diet. A diet which is deficient in fiber causes numerous thin-walled out-pouches called diverticula to develop in the bowel wall. This is actually a chronic condition known as diverticulosis. With passage of time bacterial infection of these diverticula can occur and this would cause inflammation that may lead to a perforation in the wall of the intestine and other serious complications.

Scientists came to the conclusion by analyzing data from 104 patients, both men and women, broken into two age groups: 50 years old or younger and older than 50 years. The scientists observed that there is a great deal of connection between abdominal obesity and risk of developing acute diverticulitis.

"Obese adult patients are at risk for this disease after twenty years of age," said Dr. Daly. "Because patients who get acute diverticulitis always have underlying diverticulosis of the colon, younger patients may be at increased risk for recurrent attacks of inflammation of these diverticula over the long term," he said.

"For physicians it is important to add acute diverticulitis to the list of diseases that may cause acute abdominal pain in younger patients who come to the emergency room, particularly if they are obese. Radiologists should be aware of this possibility when evaluating Computerized axial tomography scans of these patients," said Dr. Daly.


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